Living Latin: An Interview with Professor Terence Tunberg

Abstract

Terence Tunberg is a professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. He is a world-renowned proponent of Latin speaking as a means of helping with language learning and, for more advanced students, as a way to consolidate knowledge of the language. He is the founder and convener of the Lexington Latin Conventiculum, a week-long total immersion seminar in active Latin that takes place each July. Mair Lloyd, a PhD student at the Open University, first met Prof Tunberg when she attended the 2014 Conventiculum and that experience became central to her PhD researching the communicative approach to Latin teaching through a sociocultural perspective on Latin learning. This interview was recorded shortly after she and Prof Tunberg took part in a panel on Living Latin at the Classical Association conference in Edinburgh, in April 2016. A link to recordings of the four panel papers can be found at the end of this article. The fourth recording shows Prof Tunberg demonstrating some of the techniques he uses in his teaching at the Conventiculum.